


To: You(you).

by BoredomIsDeadly



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Canon Era, M/M, Reincarnation, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-29
Updated: 2015-12-28
Packaged: 2018-04-17 22:48:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4684196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BoredomIsDeadly/pseuds/BoredomIsDeadly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(Abandoned until further notice)Absent for 9 cycles, Eren is finally found in the 10th. Well, kind of. A story about pulling the plug off 2000 years of reincarnation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

Time marches on, no matter what may stand in its way. No memories of the past, no buildings made out of mason, no towering walls over the height of the tallest castle, no blood, no bones, no ash.

Some survive longer than the others, but ultimately time spares nothing in its wake. That is how the universe is supposed to function – an ironclad law not to be rewritten.

Yet there are remnants of mankind’s last hope still scattered in clusters across time; they are born, they remember, they live, they breathe, they cry. Then the cycle repeats.

All except for one.

 

* * *

 

 

Cold winter air enveloped every corner of the city. The mason roads are nearly fully layered with a soft blanket of serene white, almost blinding when under the direct rays of the sun. Not a single soul is outside in this chill, the sky layered in smoke emitting from chimneys from all over town.

A lone lavishly decorated carriage in tasteful ebony woodwork and gold speeds through the heart of the town towards the outskirts, its clattering and clopping echoing loud enough against the silence for the all the dead to hear.  The man inside, hair covered grey and face wrinkled with age, within draws up the red curtains with his hand, looking through the glass towards the outside. His breath draws a foggy cloud on the other side of the glass.

His raven haired companion, arms folded across his chest snorts at the action. “Awfully impatient, aren’t you?”

Erwin Smith gave a dry chuckle in response. “Well, we ought to be arriving soon. You would have done as I did, Levi. This harrowing cold is hardly for one to be out in, much less at the front of a speeding carriage. I simply worry for my chauffeur.”

It was the truth. If, after this trip, were his chauffeur to come down with a cold under this weather, it would be a tough cold to tide through.

Erwin felt extremely guilty, but he and Levi had an extremely important even to attend. It was as important as social gatherings go, anyway. A part of them has become so used to the melancholy of it all. He closes his eyes and leans against the wood, the coldness seeping deeply under his skin into his blood. But he feels far too exhausted mentally to care if he ends up catching a cold at this age. 

On the other hand, Levi idly sits in his seat, the destination still far enough for the depressive event to be postponed from both of their minds. 

It’s not as if Hange’s funeral was a simple thing to brush off nonchalantly or that she was far too distasteful of an individual. When one has watched someone died and attended that very same person’s funeral over and over, it can start to dull the heaviness of it all. Hange hadn’t been the only person either. There were others too, such as the man seated in front of him, Mike, his old squad and almost everyone from the 104th trainee corp.

Levi doesn’t know how many more times must the cycle of life and death repeat itself along with the memories. Levi wasn’t particularly fond of God from the start, and this didn’t win any sort of support in God’s favor, if there was even one. He would have waged a one man war against the entity; his frustration of nearly 2000 years would finally would be able to find an outlet to rain its wrath upon.

Levi had therefore concluded that there was no such thing as a God.

Thinking about this did no merit. Levi’s sigh caught the gaze of the man sitting across him. “Tell me Erwin. How many more times must we go through this?”

Erwin could offer no sort of consolation but a grim smile across his face. “I know not, Levi. May hap if we locate Eren Yeager in our next lifetimes, we can put an end to our never ending complexion.” Erwin brings up his wrinkled hands and gestures an 8. “With this, we shall be drawing the curtains close again a 9th time.”

9th time.

It’s been the 9th time they have crossed the gates of death and back into the realm of the living, where at some point they will remember about their lives before. They always do, after all, just as they always find each other again at some points in their lives. Gathering together is the only way they can make sense of their reality now. Maybe even keep their sanity intact.

“You speak shit, Erwin. I hope 60 years of mingling with the upper class in this era doesn’t stop you from changing your flowery tongue into a less obnoxious one in the next.” Levi muttered absentmindedly.

Erwin could only offer a bitter laugh.

The carriage rolls on rhythmically without rest.

 “I’m tired.” The shorter man said for the both of them.

He misses the times where things were far simpler, when his mental temperament fitted no matter his physical age, where despite life and death and everything else, living in the moment and for the future was the most important aspect of their lives. When a single moment shared with the others shone brightly in a multitude of colors more than the moments now.

Levi is sure the others share the same sentiments. It’s just that at some point in those 9 cycles, everyone acclimated to everything. They all still kept their personalities largely intact though, because their eccentricity and the memories never change.

Above everything else, Levi misses that one brat with the biggest shit eating grin hung up on his face against the backdrop of the sea.

_“Captain! It’s the sea!!!”_

_“I see it.”_

He can’t even remember Eren Yeager’s face properly anymore. It’s been almost 2000 years since they saw each other.

The boy never appeared in any one of their cycles, despite their best efforts to locate him. Despite Erwin repeatedly sending his men he built up in each cycle to find one person.

The only things left of him were almost 2000 year old shared memories with the others who followed, folklore, drawings with vague resemblance of Eren and humanity itself.

Levi has already died 8 times, so he isn’t afraid and won’t be the first person to say that he missed Eren. It has been abundantly clear that a large chunk of Mikasa and Armin’s heart is open with Eren unable to close the gap, although that gap has been steadily erasing itself from existence after all these years. He wonders if he would forget about the boy too.

He wishes the opposite.

The carriage slowly rutted to a stop, wheels crushing the snow under foot. A door soon swings open, leaving the inside at the full mercy of the nearly freezing cold outside.

Erwin is the first to exit the carriage. “Thank you, Rutherford. Terribly sorry to have you chauffeur us today in this cold.”

“A pleasure, sir Smith. Please, don’t apologize.” His chauffeur replies, right palm against the layers of his coats in a form of greeting.  

Levi trails close behind, adjusting his scarf comfily around his neck, and across the lower half of his face, making him look almost like a child.

No one says anything.

Erwin forks over some money and directs Rutherford into a tavern nearby where he can warm up with a genuinely apologetic smile.

“Let’s go, Levi.”

They approach the cathedral in heavy silence.

 

* * *

 

 

_“Is everyone here, Molbit?”_

_“Yes!” Molbit replies. Hange immediately gestures for her assistant to take a seat to take this meeting underway._

_Everyone’s attention zeroes in on Hange. All of them had been called on the grounds that Hange had something about their circumstances to say. Namely, she had outright stated that she has an idea of why the reincarnation cycle keeps repeating itself._

_No one hesitated to make their way towards the gathering._

_“Ahem!” It’s a signal for the beginning of this session. ”Isn’t it weird? We keep getting reincarnated over and over, but it’s just us. There are hundreds of other people like Nifa, our relatives and even civilians who died during those times, but we are the only ones that truly remember. There have been a few exceptions of when we have found their lookalikes, but they cannot recall anything past a bond. I believe that all of us here are in favor of the cycle to be broken, for better or worse.”_

_She brings up a piece of paper with the names of the people at present, and continues, “Currently, we can confirm that all of us here are in the fourth cycle. We can also confirm that Eren Yeager has not appeared in front of us throughout these 4 cycles. Are there any objections?”_

_Everyone looks at each other and the room soon fills with shaking of heads._

_“The theory from out second meeting still stands, but to let the recently reconciled Titan shifters catch up; all of us here are close to Eren in one way or another after he attained his Titan shifting powers.”_

_Annie, Reiner, Bertolt and Ymir all reacted, visibly fidgeting uncomfortably. They dared not to ask why, choosing to keep the silence in order for Hange’s briefing to progress instead._

_“It might be because of the original titan, it might be because of Eren’s actions in wiping out the Titan power from humanity itself towards the end of the war - It’s inconclusive. Whatever it is, it all connects back to him.”  Hange continues, feet never stopping their pace back and forth. “So, if we can find Eren, we might be able to find the answers we need to stop this.”_

_A hand rises out from the crowd. Connie, along with his hand, nervously stood. He glances away with a hand scratching his head. All eyes trail to him. “What if we can’t find him?”_

_Hange puts the name list down, and sits on the wooden table next to her. With the most steel cold determination anyone has ever seen her put on, she answered three words offering no real comfort._

_“We find him.”_

_No one objects._

 

* * *

 

 

The orients are as normal as anyone else. With the exception of a few cultural oddities, they were really no different from everyone else in all parts of the world. At least, this was the fact in the world 2000 years later the war against the titans.

It had been surprising to learn at first that there were people of a drastically different race outside of the walls of Sina that had survived without the influence of the Titans, which thrived in pockets. They couldn’t establish contact with the _other_ last group of humanity, but once the Titans fell, there was nothing standing between both parties establishing contact. There had been a few hiccups here and there, but ultimately it resulted in the peace they have today.

It reminded Levi of the tenacity of mankind, if nothing else.

This time, Levi was born into a family which stayed in Southeast Asia, a city country that was dubbed the gateway between the East and the West. Things worked themselves out and his family wasn’t overly imposing due to work, and Levi was glad for that. He would hate to break these caring strangers heart. The only parents he acknowledged had died so long ago, after tall.

The location isn’t bad, he reasoned, if the world’s population is really 7 billion, then somewhere in between every accessible continent was a good place as any to inhabit. Therefore he doesn’t protest, and he slowly learns the way of this drastically strange, new world.

As if he had been plugged into a completely different dimension this time, somehow in the absence of a few hundred years, skyscrapers sprung up from the ground, men landed on the moon, carriages are now called cars and can _drive itself,_  and people can contact another person on the other side of the globe _in seconds._

Seconds. Levi briefly wondered if writing a letter would take the same time as it took in his previous life. His amazement outright kicked that thought down into the gutters.

Holy shit balls on a skewer. Levi can’t help but wonder how much more efficient their search could be in this era. He doesn’t hold his breath though; the whole locating thing had already failed 9 times despite their best efforts to locate everyone.

Still, Levi puts his original information – not this life where his name was something else- as insignificant as it may be in the face of the internet- up for everyone else to locate. He scatters the information as best as he can within the confines of social media and then some.

As long as the others aren’t brain dead, they will have to check the internet at some point in their lives.

They will meet soon and then set out to look for Eren Yeager with varying degree of efforts. As they had done so in the past 9 live cycles.

Levi sucks in a weary gasp of air, and slumps to the backrest of his chair.

‘If we aren’t successful this time either, then fuck that kid.’ Levi whispers under his breath.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading the start of what is hopefully a long, bumpy, entertaining fic.
> 
> Uhm. Hello. I'm back. Hopefully I can update this fic once every 3 weeks. I'd prefer it to be weekly so this project ends on a happy, focused note, but, life. I'll do my best so it doesn't stretch beyond 2 months per update. I am not a very experienced writer. I do not live in the west. But I hope I do at least a decent job writing this in more ways than one. God I'm so embarrassed from putting this out there oh my god on god in god's god good dicking god.
> 
> I will answer every comment as much as I am able to within reason!
> 
> Basically, I want to state some additional stuff;  
> There won't be explicit bang bang stuff.  
> The characters are old af.  
> This is not a happy smooth fic.  
> This is the longest a author's note will ever get in this fic.
> 
> See you next chapter.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Removed the 2nd chapter from before and rewrote the whole chapter. Realized it was horrendously incompatible, in tone and in writing, with the first chapter too damn late. Extremely sorry to everyone who had to read it... orz

Since then, Levi mucked around the other parts of the internet aimlessly, from one site to the next to see anything else it had to offer. Anything was fine, as long it promised entertainment to pass time.

Entertainment came in the form of videos and music by the hoarde, so Levi willingly lets it eats away as much as the greedy medium pleased, for the time being. This was much more interesting than having to physically go to a theater house or a concert, although there was no denying their charm.

Unexpectedly, music readily uploaded everywhere by the truckload on the web pulled him in like an unshakable spell. When the tune touched his ears, a part of him reawakened, spitting back out images of past eras when he had played a vastly different sort of tune. This new tunes tickled his interest, and soon he found himself unable to stop exploring the different millions of music on the other side of the screen. Old ones and new ones, few interesting ones escaped his radar.

It was entertaining, at least for a while.

Faint, unmistakable burn and itch of his fingers missing those familiar strings and the keys started to fade in once more for the first time in this life, with each day stronger than the last. As it twitched uncomfortably with time, nothing but pure red frustration eventually flooded his mind like toxins, slowly completely trouncing whatever inner peace he had before. Levi frowns at his fingers, rubbing the soft tissues together in frustration.

No calluses. No nails.

Shit.

Levi pinches his forehead and groans. He has to retrain his body and his coordination from scratch once again. But all that pent up frustration has to go somewhere. He was boiling half mad.

“May I have a guitar and a mic?” He  asks, tactless and all, one evening, at the end of his rope, mentally crucified through the soul by boredom and frustration.

Upon hearing this, his ‘mother’ simply looks upwards from the kitchen, knife halfway through a tomato. Her face, Levi notes, is gaping and frozen in undecipherable shock.

“O-of course! Yes! Anything!” She gleefully replies, haphazardly discarding the knife into point oblivion on the kitchen counter. Levi watches in muted horror as the woman dashes to the living room, practically pressing her cheeks into the sides of the house phone.  She then yells into the phone with sheer, bubbling ecstasy, “D-Dear! Levi wants a guitar and a mic!!”

His frown burrows deeper at the statement. He watches in bewilderment when the woman proceeds to hop, sing and practically dance like titan on the spot.

The first sign of a headache begins to pound within the confines of his skull. It hurt to watch.

Unable to comprehend her excitement, he retreated to his room to spare himself from the uncontrolled joy that was now choking the silence out of living room.

* * *

 

It's a shock. NoName wasn’t supposed to take a life of his own. NoName wasn't supposed to start being the talk of the websphere without any initiation on Levi's part. A few video of Levi with the guitar covering an existing song shouldn’t warrant this much attention and an encore, let alone a slowly growing fan base. It was a curious experiment gone out of control, completely and spectacularly out of control. He sighs, wondering if he had unwittingly made a foolish choice that held the most amount of regret in this life.

‘ _Whatever_ ,’ he convinces himself, ‘ _in another 50 years it will all be jack shit again_.’

Then, one weekend quiet morning of no particular note, he finds an email innocently sitting in his otherwise empty inbox, simply waiting. It struck out like a red neon sign against the emptiness; Levi was as much of a clean freak with his accounts as he is in actual life. From an unknown sender, it was simply subjected as, “Survey Corps”.

How apt.

Eyeballs scanned through the words displayed on the monitor in relative calm, hand fishing for the cup of black tea resting on the side of his table. Erwin Smith, greetings, list of found individuals, and then an invitation paid by no other than the sender himself. For a while, he lingers on the last line, contemplating the question being asked.

_Would you like to come over for the usual meeting?_

It was a question not even worth asking.

* * *

 

All that’s left of the walls are rubble, eaten away by the wind and slowly returning back to dirt. The center of the castle in the walls itself no longer exist, completely sacked and razed to the grounds along with the cities sometime during the following 2000 years.

Levi looks on to the empty meadow, taking in the sights of the vast ruins and what once existed in history.

Levi recalls the chaos when the walls crumbled down, years later, when the titans inside present as human sacrifices no longer provided the support the structure so desperately needed. Minuscule cracks quickly growing into fissures, then, like a thunderous roar, one of the walls give way. It dragged the rest of its kin like an unstoppable topping domino, first the outer wall, then the inner, and then the innermost wall.

It’s quite sombre.

And fuck, Levi thinks, it’s _cold._

He tries inconspicuously pulling his coat tighter, body far too adjusted to the tropical climate to stand against this cold. It’s autumn, according to all the calendars and meteorology predictions, but this feels like goddamn winter. Not that he was particularly good against the cold in the first place, but this was as if he didn’t stand a chance. A lone word of ‘warmth’ dances around in his head, mocking him; the word alone sounds nice and welcoming.

He wasn’t here specifically to torture himself. When Erwin had contacted him –thank the internet- he accepted the invitation and the air tickets for a meet up, and only after Erwin had reworked the plans so it didn’t interfere with school.

They headed towards the meeting place, mentally prepared to exchange greetings and catch up with the others. Sadly, the amount of individuals did not even remotely match up to half of the name list.

The knowledge that more of them had given up the cause for searching for Eren drove home the simmering despair inside of him.

_‘It can’t be helped.’_

Perhaps it’s all hopeless.

“Where the hell is Erwin?” He mutters behind the scarf.

“Sorry to keep you waiting!” a voice came from behind him.

He pinpoints the owner of the voice only to see Hange frantically waving her arm at him like an over enthusiastic, peppy puppy.

This is a surprise.

“When did they find you?” He asks.

“Oh, just now,” Hange grins, as if it wasn’t that big of a deal. “Erwin was just driving his car along with Hannes when they spotted me walking on the street. Such a pity that I missed the meeting!”

His almost gapes at that. It’s so Hange-like; Levi thinks that in itself was incredible. “I see. So what are you doing now?”

“Botany. A bit of psychology too, unofficially. I’m being shipped off to the states soon. I heard you’re planning on being a musician?”

Levi nods, not feeling the need to explain further. It’s… embarrassing to be ‘NoName’. He had been playing the violins, pianos and guitars when he ran out of things to do in the past, and now he’s just a plain anonymous internet celebrity, as all evidence seem to point towards to. In other words, it’s all very shushed shushed and underground. He wants it to stay that way.

“Anyway, Erwin told me to pick you up; they are ready to send you back to the airport.”

Hange’s gaze is fixated upon the grassland in front of them. Emotions flood back in once more, as it did countless times before, but they are far too faded to matter.

Levi sucks in a breath, both him and Hange’s feelings mutual. He turns, towards the road where Erwin and Hannes are, having enough of the scenery.

“Hange, have you given up?” Levi doesn’t see the other’s face.

“I don’t want to. What about you?”

He snorts. “I wouldn’t bother to accept Erwin’s shitty holiday invitation if I had.”

Hange simply gives Levi a reassuring pat on the shoulder. “Let’s catch up in the car.”

He smiles behind the scarf, out of sight from Hange. It’s so Hange-like.

* * *

 

The first thought that had crossed his mind upon touching down was, _‘final-fucking-ly.’_ It’s back to the hot tropical weather, and back to his apartment he still shares with his parents. Ah, no. "Parents"? that’s wrong, his heart protests despite his logic, kind strangers.

He crashes into the bed at the very first opportunity, too drained to care, clutching his phone which now held the contacts of the others.

His mind races, constructing all of the possible future that awaits him. Unfortunately, he could see nothing but one, a sandy eternal hell. Surely all of the others arrived at the same conclusion as well, that their situation was now and forever a law of the universe, that Eren Yeager had died a natural death all those years ago, that continuing this manhunt was fruitless rabbit chase.

They didn’t speak of it directly, but Levi is certain that even Erwin and Hange are on the verge of giving up.

His situation frustrates him to no end, torturing him day in and day out. If he had his whole memory wiped from each reset, would it have eased the burden? He has lost count on the number of times that thought crossed his mind. He’s a over 300 years old, random chance would dictate that God would wash his hands off their merry gang after the 4th round of rebirth, and that was being generous.

He had tried to take a few rather drastic measures to escape the cycle, but it was futile. Dying a natural death didn’t break it; suicide essentially just sped up time; being murdered was just as pointless – he even got executed at some point to test if definitions made a difference and all he got was another reset.

Whichever death was chosen, they still woke up to another era at a later date. That, at least, was a confirmed fact.

Levi now at least knows that going by the guillotine wasn’t as humane or painless as the French had claimed it to be. He still recalls the cold and the lack of heartbeat for a whole full minute after it had dropped its mighty blade, cutting flesh and bone clean through.

But, he saw with his eyes before, that there were worse ways to go, ways far worse than his interrogations and the guillotine. Things that even he didn't wish to go through.

A voice suddenly cuts his thoughts, stopping it from spiraling even deeper.

“Levi! Would you like to have dinner?” came the man’s voice.

Sluggishly, he pushes himself off the bed, dragging his frame out of the dark bedroom. “Sure,” he replies, just loud enough so that his voice may reach their ears.

Levi marvels at these strangers’s kindness. Looking back, he notices that this is the first time he’d been born into such a stable, relatively warm family that was devoid of anything turbulent. He can feel the kindness oozing out in surplus from the both of these married couple, so familiar (like that brat’s tea) yet foreign.

A kindness that is frankly, misplaced. When Levi had suggested the notion of changing his name, they agreed, all questions held back with taut reins and kept to a minimum. Levi is fully aware that they seem to be walking on eggshells around him, the reasons for which he could vaguely infer, but not pinpoint. It’s all too strange.

He blames it on the fact that he had never started a family before, or had a proper functioning one like this. He was the problem; he was the one that couldn’t fill this apartment up with laughter, the one that took more warmth than gave out. He has to show his gratitude at some point, Levi figures. It's the least he should do.

Yet, they should just forget about him and have a second child instead.

He’s pitifully horrendous at playing house.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay. So. I accidentally became busy. Sorry... I don't know if I'll actually finish this fic.

Years of seasons replaced by monsoon passes.

And now he’s slumped backwards on top of a box, staring up into the ceiling, almost in a mental state of prayer.

“Dear, come on. We could at _least_ stay for a while more to unpack all these things in the boxes, right?” The woman says, spreading her arms out towards the cardboard boxes stacked upon one and another in the living room, taped shut.

In reality, there were only a couple of them.

She practically pouts at her significant other.  “There are so many! Levi must be so tired after lifting them from the moving van!”

Levi pinches his forehead at that. Yes, he was tired, but the whole moving was definitely not the cause of most of his fatigue. He’s just relieved at the very possible, very near future prospect of not having to witness any more incomprehensible lovely-dovey couple interactions at this point.

“I’ll be fine.” Levi reassures, tone slack.

The man smiles at Levi, no offense taken, and instead reaches his lean arm to try and guide his spouse towards the other side of the ornate wooden apartment door, laughing awkwardly. “Honey. Leonar- Erm, I mean, Levi can handle these just fine,” he persuades. “Our son is buff, hard as steel abs and all, you know?  Come on honey. It’s really late, he needs his rest.” The man then blinks at the petite woman for good measure, as if implying his hereditary trait had contributed to Levi’s longing for familiarity, further reinstating some abstract concept towards his wife that Levi doesn’t even want to understand.

No. He vaguely does. His tired brain recalls that one moment of the woman accidentally walking in on him changing, half undressed. Usually he wouldn’t have given a second passing thought to it, but this was a completely different era in a different country and not the military where nudity was often dismissed without a second thought.  Upon the visage, the woman blushes with a puff of pink pounding embarrassment for a moment, and there is a brief instance of flowers fluttering out from her figure in Levi’s peripheral.

With a trained face as cold as marble, Levi shows no indication of his ever mounting discomfort to the two standing before him, still at their conversation.

“Oh, should I drop by every week? Dear, what do you think about a weekly grocery drop?”

The main jumps, frantically waving his hands as if it was enough to dissipate the idea altogether. “No _nonono_ , no, honey… I don’t think that will be necessary!”

“What if we came back tomorrow?” The woman says, now a lone finger pondering upon her lower lips.

The man, puzzled, questions upon that, “What for?”

“Hum hum! To unpack the furniture, of course.” She says as a matter-of-fact.

At that, a pair of black benevolent orbs fell upon Levi’s figure, arms crossed, gaze fixated upon the apartment door.

“I don’t think that will be needed. What did I say about his strength?” As if to completely smother the other with honey, he proceeds to tenderly lug an arm around her wrist, hoisting the woman into the air. “See? And our Levi is stronger than this.” The man sneaks in a wink, for good measure.

That has somehow succeeded in temporarily creating this suspended bubble with no visible weak point right in front of Levi.

The painkillers are definitely, unmistakably, without a doubt, in the medical kit in the drawer by the bedside. Oh, and there are a few in his pockets at the moment, because it was the only pain retardant against these two’s constant antics, even if it was indeed a placebo drug. Levi would have tried for beer, but there were two major problems with that. One, there aren’t any in the fridge. He’s 26 and just moved, with startlingly little home assets like those under his name despite the amount of liquidity he owns. Two, he can’t get drunk. Ergo, in his eyes, alcohol is only useful for disinfecting any open wounds.

Levi is at his wit’s end.

“You two should go back home soon.” Levi encourages, eyes trained more on the man than the woman, hinting for the man to take a goddamn initiative and get out of his penthouse. They both look towards each other instead, awkward silence slowly seeping into every corner of the new apartment. Levi feigns interest at the clock hung up on the wall with a steel mask. “…It’s getting late.”

He was now feeling mildly sick. The thought that the house still desperately needing heavy cleaning and disinfection crossed Levi’s mind. In fact, his whole body reacted to that by jittering, fueled mad with distress. Levi keeps none of this visible, stilling himself with sheer unparalleled restraint.

“See? Let’s not make him worry anymore, honey.”

“A-alright. If you say so, Levi.” The woman’s voice gradually fades as she is pushed into the hallway, vision still locked onto Levi’s. Until she was pushed past the corner, at which their gazes were completely cut off. “Call us if you need anything, okay?!”

He doesn’t respond.

“Just in case…” Levi mumbles, and swiftly makes his way towards the windows, peering down to the parking lot exit. Like a hawk, he waits and observes the one car slowly rearing its white matte head out of the underground space, eventually –finally- taking its owners back home.

_Thank. You._

There was a weight that seemingly released its vice grip on Levi.

Thus, just like that, the strangers are no longer a central part of his life anymore. He has never felt this liberated for a while, if “a while” could be defined as a couple of years against almost 400 years.

Well, it might as well be. Another 100 years could past and it would be worth as much as a passing fart to the man. There is one pressing problem, however. Despite that unwavering faith towards father time actually doing his job unlike that one other all encompassing god, his feet and hands lead him into the storage box containing all of his preferred armaments cleaning solutions, bleach, mops, rags, what-have-you, and the limbs immediately made quick arrangements for the night’s march towards sunrise. A cloth warps around his face like a mask, another cloth warps around his head protectively like a shield against the dusts, and both arms are completely armored in rubber gloves.

The apartment has to be cleaned with prejudice.

He gets to work, limbs functioning like clockwork. First he laid the raid on the washrooms, the loft and its connected balcony, stairs, storage room, then bedrooms, his work room, kitchen, and finally the living room. Systematically, from the inside to out, top to down, then into the washroom once more just to get rid of whatever discharge carried over from cleaning the rest of the penthouse. The more he cleans and rubs the ever loving crap out of the corners, the more he gets absolutely pissed off, heat practically pouring out from his ears.

_Scrub scrub scrub scrub._

At some point he peers over to the clock, which kindly informed the man that it was currently 1am, and he was only 4 worth of cleaning hours in. It was still unsatisfactory, unacceptably grimy foul state at the dreadful corners where the fake wooden floorboards met the walls in his eyes.

Blood flows into his eyes; bring out the veins, giving a rise to the monstrosity of webs underneath those spheres, almost disqualifying him as human.

Any speck of dust or grime is absolutely unforgiveable.

The apartment itself was purchased straight after construction finished; remnants of construction dust still lingered about and stuck to corners like super glue. He crouches, gets on all four, gets a ladder and even at one point just outright flips furniture that was part of the purchase over. Furniture that was more than likely just tacked on by people who weren’t his levels of cleanliness-insane. They were as minimal as he had ordered, at least.

Then, at last, six hours after he started, Levi finishes a well deserved shower and starts his very first seconds living in his new home proper.

He walks towards the living room where most of the items are properly tuckered away at places where he desired them, books and CDs orderly and logically arranged. Just glancing through made him somewhat pleased at the collection he had amassed.

The song with the person famous for singing about fireflies with a dinky piano was in the O section. R contained a really niche band who sang about their _Oshakashama_. The discs with the catchy smoothing Techno beat with those Eastern robotic moving suit wearing men are at where the W should be. Should one see the upper half, they would be right in accusing Levi of a hipster. The lower half contained classical music pieces and some Icelandic folk song, as a counterbalance.

All of those are his. The house is his. There are no strangers in this self tailored penthouse, just silence and Levi.

The chimes, once upon a time unknown and disliked until he made his very first trip to a mart from a generation before in this time, rings out gently from above him. His nose faintly picks up that unmistakable scent of salty, gentle ocean breeze blowing in along with the first signs of day.

Oh, the sliding doors at the balcony weren’t shut. The thought had completely slipped his mind in a desperate rush to finish the cleaning.

A weary sigh escapes his lips, tugging at his plain white shirt, a faithful, durable companion for years thus far.

The house quickly becomes illuminated despite the darkness, far too much for Levi’s liking as he climbed upwards to the open balcony. This dwelling is begging for curtains, he notes. The scent of the sea grows stronger with each drained step, smelling overwhelmingly pleasing, calming, familiar, and a thousand other words in between. Shutting the sliding doors was the first thing to come to his fatigued plagued mind, but the idea dislodged itself off, and before he had come to realize it, Levi was looking towards the sea, one hand slack on the railing, ears enjoying the ever slowly growing sound of the waves.

“Not bad.” He remarks to himself, silently pleased with his recent action and decisions.

If he reached out his hands, Levi thinks he might just be able to touch the waves. It’s so close, but of course that was just baseless abstract thinking. The distance isn’t a stretch, and it would talk nearly no effort or time at all to sink his bare feet uncharacteristically into the sand and walk across the expanse of sand.

Levi would stay at that spot forever, but his mind coolly offered half baked crazy ideas such as “sleeping on that sand must feel nice, I should go over.”

Shutting the doors, Levi made his way to the oversized couch in comparison to his stature and collapsed. The foam underneath was between a pleasant level of hardness and softness, which reassured Levi’s wish for rest will be properly sated without ill effect. As those disturbingly bright lights jabbed painfully past his eyelids, he sought for the comfort of the single red cushion and brought it upon his face, blocking out as much as it could without obstructing his respiration.

Whatever things he had to shop for, it will be later in the day.

And just like that, he falls asleep swiftly, but only briefly.

Xxx

Somewhere, far, far away from the surrounding seas the dainty tropical island where Levi stays, a single figure hangs out by the roof of an abandoned building.

It’s far away enough from the city to still see the individual main roads branching out like veins with vehicles pumping along the asphalt as if its life blood, and yet not hear a single decibel of traffic. The building is empty, save for its skeleton of concrete, and the figure rests far above from the ground, away from the nightly tea gathering of the crickets. The figure doesn’t see the lights of the city fading to life or hear the nightly residence of the surrounding stirring awake. The scenery was of no importance either, for their eyes was shut off from the rest of the world.

It’s nearly pitch dark, save for a sole glass bottle sitting next to the figure, twinkling sporadically. The contents, a single faded letter, had been taken out and read once, then twice, and thrice. It now quietly takes in whatever meager light source there is from miles away, letting the occasional flash of the closest light tower bounce off its glassy surface without resistance.

It’s the figure’s only companion for such a peaceful night.

For hours, the figure does nothing but only to stare behind their closed eyes, legs hanging over the ledges to the trees below.  It’s none of their concern if the sun had gone down hours ago; it’s not priority.

A current of cold wind approaches boldly, caressing the figure’s face with interest. It lingers about with wonder and whispering sweet nothings into deaf ears in a vain attempt to tempt them back into the world of the living.

Whatever goes on behind those eyelids, only they observe. Both yellow orbs marked by slits observe on beyond the darkness. They watch, cold, heartless, calculated and content.


End file.
